Recently, a sales method which activates the function of each wireless communication device in accordance with a contract between a licenser and a licensee has been employed in order to sell wireless communication devices with limited functions, such as cellular phones and information terminals. Specifically, a wireless communication device, which performs its function according to key information defining various operations, stores key information indicating the limitation to the predetermined function in an initial condition, and then the function of a wireless communication device is activated by rewriting key information according to a license contract.
Patent Literature Document 1 discloses a method of changing key information in a wireless communication device. According to the method of Patent Literature Document 1, a licensee specifies a wireless communication device and requests the activation of its function with a support center, and therefore the support center generates and transmits an upgrade key. i.e. data used to update the key information of the wireless communication device, to a licensee's terminal. The licensee applies the upgrade key, which is received with the terminal, to the wireless communication device, thus updating the key information. In this connection, the upgrade key is unique data encrypted with a cipher key unique to the wireless communication device, which cannot be applied to other wireless communication devices. This is needed to prevent functions from being activated by other wireless communication devices, which are not covered by contracts, by way of illegal copying.
Patent Literature Document 2 discloses a license administration system which manages licenses of software products for each customer. It includes an agent which starts up and enables a software product based on a license key unique to a user terminal installing the software product therein, and an administration center which manages the issued license in response to a key issue request from the user terminal while generating, sending back, and storing a license key unique to the user terminal. Herein, it reads the unique ID of the user terminal so as to generate a media key recording the license information.
Patent Literature Document 3 discloses a license administration system which manages licenses of software products for customers, thus demonstrating the same functionality as Patent Literature Document 2. Herein, a shipment management center receives a media key and the name of a requested application so as to generate and send back a license key to an agent making a request under the maximum contacted quantity restricted by the licensed application software.
Patent Literature Document 4 discloses a license administration system adopting a license server which authenticates licenses while managing the contacted quantities of licenses and the currently used licenses. The license server sends a transfer license key, which is used to authenticate the license of a device executing a job input from a user terminal, to an authentication server, and therefore the authentication server authenticates the license of the job executing device by use of the transfer license key.
Patent Literature Document 5 discloses an installation management method of an information processing device, in which an application-installation management module generates counter information associated to a license ID for each application ID based on an application-installation request and license information received from a license management server, thus managing installation of software based on a license status represented by the counter information.